Would you move back to Starkville?

[randystewart]

I love it. Granted, I still travel a lot so I get the best of both worlds. MSU provides Starkville with all kinds of affordable entertainment options, coupled with a low cost of living. The public schools started declining rapidly several years ago when they did a consolidation with the county. Like many have said, teachers now have ZERO ability to discipline students, and that just leads to the public schools being basically an teenage daycare.
On the flip side, you have the occasional parent that gets mad about their precious little angel being disciplined at the academy so they will switch over to public. Personally, I will have to go with the Academy when our kids reach school age simply because it is a disciplined environment. I also really like that the Academy has drug testing for the high school students. I feel like that would serve as a huge barrier to drug use during those experimental years. As for the cost of the Academy..... One year at the Academy will cost less than two months of daycare where we moved from.

 

[8dog]

send their kids to SA. That's really what Im talking about.

Plenty of successful people have come out of there and plenty of successful people are enrolling their kids there.

 

[jamdawg96]

My dad was the tennis coach when he first got the job there. He was a football coach, mainly, but back then there weren't enough people to coach all the sports. I was too young to remember his years as the tennis coach, or biology teacher, for that matter.<div>
</div><div>I'm not trying to discourage anyone from sending their kids to the public schools, I just wanted to clear the air about what's going on there. The academic options aren't even close. Starkville High School gave me a thorough, challenging education (c/o '04). It was once one of the best schools in the state, as I'm sure you know, and statistically could still be pretty high up in terms of advanced placement offerings and college scholarships attained.</div><div>
</div><div>There's just a growing problem of irresponsibility, neglect, and distrust coming up through the ranks that has caused some teachers to get the hell out of there. Others have weathered the storm knowing they'll be able to retire in a matter of years, but by all accounts, the Starkville School District lost some good, young teachers recently, and that bothers me.</div><div>
</div><div>Like I said, with the growing population, due in large part to the University, I'm hoping this trend will change. It's really up to the parents living there now to make sure it's a "bend but don't break" era.</div>

 

[saltslugs]

is largely (or even partially) based on the restaurant decision, you are either very fat or a very boring person. I love restaurants and eat out a lot, but how the hell is this a priority. Do you have a decent restaurant? A decent bar? A grocery store? Okay, I'm satisfied.<div>
</div><div>
<div>Restaurants always get brought up in these type of threads based on major life decisions. Who are you people?</div></div>

 

[quickdawg]

Grew up there, public schools K-12. Still have family there and still love to visit...but really enjoy where I live now and the drive is not so bad that I can't make it back quickly for an MSU fix. So the thought of moving back is always there but it's not a burning desire for me.


I got a great education out of Starkville Public Schools and particularly SHS when I went (more than a few years ago).

 

[saltslugs]

nm

 

[dawgs.sixpack]

is largely (or even partially) based on the restaurant decision, you are either very fat or a very boring person. I love restaurants and eat out a lot, but how the hell is this a priority. Do you have a decent restaurant? A decent bar? A grocery store? Okay, I'm satisfied.<div>
</div><div>
<div>Restaurants always get brought up in these type of threads based on major life decisions. Who are you people?</div></div>

A restaurant/bar/grocery though, some of us like options and different types of bars and restaurants. personally, i don't need a NYC sized selection of bars and restaurants, but i do like a mid-sized city's options (2-4M people in the metro area).<div>
</div><div>as for it being a true motivation, i don't think any of us sit around weighing it more heavily than education and job prospects, but i think that naturally cities with more and better job prospects and more and better educational opportunities are also going to have more and better restaurants and bars. more and better concerts of all types and venues to host them. more and better shopping. more and better museums. more and better city festivals. etc etc etc

</div>

 

[wk80]

It's amazing to me that food has been discussed more than cost of living, school systems ect.There are plenty of places in any city for you to get fat. Don't worry. </p>

 

[saltslugs]

Starkville probably has 60 restaurants and 15-20 bars. How often are you (not you specifically, but in general) eating out to greatly desire more? I love visiting large cities to partake in different activities and eating different food, but I cannot imagine the lack of restaurants in Starkville a consideration in moving.

 

[dawgs.sixpack]

It's amazing to me that food has been discussed more than cost of living, school systems ect.There are plenty of places in any city for you to get fat. Don't worry. </p>

getting fat occurs when you eat the 1/2 lb burger and 16 oz steak with fries and a salad with ranch every night, you know "american food", not when you eat rice and veggies with a few oz of grilled teriyaki chicken or pork bulgogi.

 

[jamdawg96]

I have plenty of friends who went to SA who seem to be doing well for themselves.<div>
</div><div>But despite the public school problems, you can still get a better education at Starkville High. And athletics? Not even close. I had some friends who switched to the Academy, but it was only because they couldn't start in football or basketball at SHS. It was never about academics and I highly doubt it was ever about social problems.Granted, my parents were employed there and I was athletic enough to hang, so the issue of switching never really crossed my mind.</div><div>
</div><div>And speaking of athletics, while Greg Byrne was here, he sent his kids to the public schools, for what it's worth--which probably isn't much considering he got the hell out of Starkville.</div>

 

[wk80]

Do you have a tux on right now?

 

[dawgs.sixpack]

it's the lack of everything. i couldn't imagine living in a small town again. it would drive me crazy. i live in the city and have what i'd consider a pretty stress free, relatively slow pace of life. seems like the misperception is that if you live in the city you are inherently living the fast life and constantly sitting in traffic blowing horns and working 24/7 and generally running yourself into the ground.

 

[dawgs.sixpack]

i would have left SA for HS except that i never would have touched the football field at SHS. given that SA was arguably the better baseball team during my HS years, i still might have gotten to play baseball though.

 

[bulliegolfer]

Of course I'm an old guy without the needs of a big city. I would think it would be a great area to retire to. We will see, I'm also thinking about the Orange Beach area. But hurricanes is the concern there. So who knows.............

 

[dawgs.sixpack]

nope, tennis shoes, jeans, and an untucked plaid button up shirt. that's pretty much my standard work wear.

 

[Johnson85]

i think alot of public schools are fine, but in areas where the community has gone to ****, the schools have as a consequence. i don't think either local or federal governments have been able to affect that trend for good or bad.

If Starkville high school is as bad as my friends lead me to believe (no clue if it is or not), that would be an example of a school going to **** before the community does.Starkvilleis not exactly affluent, butthere's no reason it shouldn't have a good public school.

You just can't operate without incentives or counterproductive incentives and expect things to turn out all right. Sometimes they do, but generally communities with particularly strong families have good schools b/cit's not easy to screw up kids when the majority of them come from households that believe education is important.But other communities only need one bad administration to fubar the schools up enough that parents with means choose to send their kids to private school.

 

[croomsgone]

the people you respect and trust obviously know nothing. its been better, much better, but currently it is not a serious problem and has actually progressively gotten better the past two years.

 

[fishwater99]

I am not fat, 6'3 and 210 lbs. I love to cook and to eat out, as a matter of fact just had a great sushi lunch at Sakura Bana. I am not a chef, but have been trained to cook by several that are close friends. My wife and I don't eat out as much as we used too, since we have 2 small children, but we do make it out at least once a week to a nice restaurant. Before moving to Jackson, we lived in New Orleans, so I might have a different perspective on restaurants and food than some redneck from north Mississippi. We would get bored with the restaurant choices in Starkville in one months time. But to each there own. Saying that, Jackson is not great as far as restaurants, but light years ahead of Starkville..
We moved to Jackson to be close to grandparents, it is also close to my family's hunting land on the Big Black. My wife would never move to Starkville because she is a graduate of TSUN, and it would be too far from the grandparents. Jackson is the only city in MS we will live in until we retire. The private schools are good, the social and cultural scene is nice, go to a good church, have great friends, pretty good jobs, we are close to the airport for travel and halfway between New Orleans and Memphis. It's not perefect, but it's only a short drive to STATE up Hwy 25.

 

[dawgs.sixpack]

fwiw this isn't a starkville issue. same thing applies to oxford, fayetteville, auburn, tuscaloosa, etc, and pretty much every smaller college town in the country, they all lack much more entertainment and restaurants that aren't catered to college students.<div>
</div><div>they are great while you are in school and maybe immediately following college, but once you are a few years removed from college you are the creepy old guy hitting on the college chicks who never moved away after graduation. once upon a time i thought i'd wanna live in a college town forever. then i turned 25 and finished up grad school and it lost the appeal for me.</div>